Peaks TV

Did Twin Peaks Just Sneakily Re-Introduce an Old Fan Favorite?

This post contains frank discussion of the fifth installment of Showtime’s Twin Peaks revival. If you’re not caught up yet, now is the time to leave.

Last year, when Showtime announced the very long cast list for David Lynch’sTwin Peaks: The Return, there was some concern that the series would struggle to find room for that many (217!) characters. But the show is already zooming along at a steady clip, and Episode 5 alone managed to casually toss Jim Belushi, Tom Sizemore, Ernie Hudson, and more into the mix without missing a beat. Still, there are two very important people who have yet to pop up: Kyle MacLachlan’s original forbidden love interest, Sherilyn Fenn’s Audrey Horne, and the woman many hope might be his future romantic partner, Laura Dern playing Who Knows. Neither woman showed her face in Episode 5—but this Sunday, Lynch may have sneakily laid the groundwork for at least one of those two to enter the narrative.

A main focus of the fifth episode, in addition to MacLachlan’s comedy of errors masquerading as Dougie Jones, was the introduction of the younger generation of Twin Peaks. And as was the case with the original series, the kids are not alright. Shelly’s (Mädchen Amick) kid, Becky Burnett (Amanda Seyfried), has followed in her mom’s footsteps by marrying a loser named Steven Burnett, played to creepy perfection by Caleb Landry Jones (Get Out, X-Men: First Class). Meanwhile, it turns out the Bang Bang Bar isn’t just a hangout for the older generation of Twin Peaks. As Lynch’s real-life son Riley Lynch plays onstage with the band Trouble, Jane Levy’s Elizabeth and Grace Victoria Cox’s Charlotte have a very unsavory run-in with an assault-happy character played by Eamon Farren. That character’s name? Richard Horne.

As is the case with a lot of the new characters this season, the only way to know Farren was playing a young member of Twin Peaks’s famed Horne family was to go through the closing credits with a fine-toothed comb and IMDb at the ready. To ensure maximum secrecy, the new character names weren’t announced in advance of the premiere—and though the show is going to great pains to drop first names into the script as often as possible (“Send in Steven!” “Hi, Becky!”), the closing credits remain a rewarding, if oddball, place to discover new Twin Peaks info.

While it’s possible that either Ben (Richard Beymer) or Jerry (David Patrick Kelly), those randy old goats, fathered this awful kid, it seems much more likely that we just met the son of Audrey Horne—who is also potentially a person of interest for the spirits of the White/Black Lodge.

Perhaps the bigger mystery is not the identity of Richard’s mother but, rather, the question of who his father might be. The last we saw of Audrey’s Season 2 love interest, Jack Wheeler (Billy Zane), he was flying off, never to return. The only other person to be romantically linked with Audrey in the original series was Agent Dale Cooper himself, who nobly rejected her teenaged advances in Season 1. Since Twin Peaks went off the air, Fenn herself has dished some behind-the-scenes dirt on why that Season 1 relationship dissolved:

What happened was that Lara [Flynn Boyle] was dating Kyle
[MacLachlan], and she was mad that my character was getting more
attention, so then Kyle started saying that his character shouldn’t be
with my character because it doesn’t look good, ’cause I’m too young.
Literally, because of that, they brought in Heather Graham—who’s
younger than I am—for him and Billy Zane for me. I was not happy about
it. It was stupid.

If Fenn’s account is accurate, and if Lynch agrees that the Audrey/Cooper relationship was worth further exploration, it’s possible that a Kyle MacLachlan character is the father of young Richard here. Not Cooper, of course; he’s been trapped in the lodge for 25 years. But a very decent facsimile of the agent that Audrey carried a torch for did come out in his place in the Season 2 finale, and it’s not hard to see that this particular rotten apple doesn’t seem to fall too far from the evil doppelgänger tree.

This is all conjecture, of course—but it doesn’t seem too far outside the realm of possibility that Evil Cooper may have impregnated a teenaged Audrey and then left her flat. It would also explain why Richard would have her last name, and not his father’s. It doesn’t explain how Audrey survived the bank explosion that threatened her life in the Season 2 finale, though that answer can be found in the pages of the 2016 The Secret History of Twin Peaks novel. And if a Cooper double did use and abuse Audrey, any on-screen reunion between Fenn and MacLachlan is bound to be tense.

Although this is just a theory for now, the violent similarities between Richard and Evil Cooper are a little too irresistible to ignore. Lynch’s Twin Peaks has always dabbled in the corrupt and debauched behavior of the town’s angelic-looking youth. Amanda Seyfried’s coked-out gaze skyward as the Paris Sisters’ “I Love How You Love Me” played was a classic Laura Palmer-esque move. (Even if Shelly sees a lot of herself in Becky.) But Richard here is an evil of a different color, and given Good Cooper’s burgeoning affection for his quasi-adopted offspring, Sonny Jim Jones (Pierce Gagnon), I wouldn’t be surprised if the theme of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and a little bit of history repeating played a huge role in this ongoing return to Twin Peaks.

Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer/Maddy Ferguson)

Ah, the girl whose mysterious death started it all. She’ll probably forever be identified with the two roles she played for David Lynch—or perhaps, to some, as Katrina from Vampires—but Lee also enjoyed a stint on One Tree Hill as Ellie Harp, among other roles, including a supporting part opposite Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone and, more recently, the part of Karen Stern in Cafe Society.

Kyle MacLachlan (Agent Dale Cooper)

In the years since he played Agent Dale Cooper, Kyle MacLachlan has had no shortage of interesting roles. He’s played ill-fated lovers Trey MacDougal and Orson Hodge on Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives, respectively, as well as the Mayor in Portlandia, among many other roles.

Lara Flynn Boyle (Donna Hayward)

Although she was a relative rookie when Twin Peaks first aired, Lara Flynn Boyle went on to be one of the show’s biggest breakout stars. Her film repertoire includes credits in Men in Black II, Dead Poets Society, and Wayne’s World. Her longest-running TV role to date was as Helen Gamble in The Practice, in which she appeared for six years.

Mädchen Amick (Shelly Johnson)

Since Twin Peaks left the airwaves, Amick—who played poor, unfortunate Shelly Johnson—has been one of its most prolific alumni, with memorable roles in Gilmore Girls, ER, Gossip Girl, Witches of East End, and, most recently, Riverdale, among many others.

Kimmy Robertson (Lucy Moran)

Kimmy Robertson doesn’t always fetch doughnuts. She’s also played a wide swath of roles, including the feather duster in Disney’s original Beauty and the Beast, Milhouse’s short-lived girlfriend Samantha in The Simpsons, and Kimmy on The Louie Show—which one should not confuse with Louie, although the stars of both now live on FX.

Kenneth Welsh (Windom Earle)

You know what they say: one man’s insane ex-cop is another man’s foolish veep. At least, it seems that way with Kenneth Welsh, who played Windom Earle in Twin Peaks, as well as the vice president who didn’t believe Dennis Quaid about global warming in The Day After Tomorrow. Welsh, who had been an actor for decades before Twin Peaks, enjoyed a bit of a career high in the mid-aughts, which brought roles not only in the climate disaster film but also in films like The Aviator and The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Russ Tamblyn (Lawrence Jacoby)

Before David Lynch brought him on as a sketchy doctor with multi-colored specs, Russ Tamblyn—yes, father to Amber Tamblyn—co-starred with Richard Beymer in West Side Story, in which he played Riff. Post-Peaks, you can find him, among other roles, in Django Unchained and Drive.

Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer/Maddy Ferguson)

Ah, the girl whose mysterious death started it all. She’ll probably forever be identified with the two roles she played for David Lynch—or perhaps, to some, as Katrina from Vampires—but Lee also enjoyed a stint on One Tree Hill as Ellie Harp, among other roles, including a supporting part opposite Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone and, more recently, the part of Karen Stern in Cafe Society.

Kyle MacLachlan (Agent Dale Cooper)

In the years since he played Agent Dale Cooper, Kyle MacLachlan has had no shortage of interesting roles. He’s played ill-fated lovers Trey MacDougal and Orson Hodge on Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives, respectively, as well as the Mayor in Portlandia, among many other roles.

Lara Flynn Boyle (Donna Hayward)

Although she was a relative rookie when Twin Peaks first aired, Lara Flynn Boyle went on to be one of the show’s biggest breakout stars. Her film repertoire includes credits in Men in Black II, Dead Poets Society, and Wayne’s World. Her longest-running TV role to date was as Helen Gamble in The Practice, in which she appeared for six years.

Mädchen Amick (Shelly Johnson)

Since Twin Peaks left the airwaves, Amick—who played poor, unfortunate Shelly Johnson—has been one of its most prolific alumni, with memorable roles in Gilmore Girls, ER, Gossip Girl, Witches of East End, and, most recently, Riverdale, among many others.

James Marshall (James Hurley)

He might forever be the doleful James Hurley in Twin Peaks fans’ hearts, but James Marshall also made a name for himself in film with roles alongside heavyweights like Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr. in A Few Good Men and Gladiator.

Ray Wise (Leland Palmer)

Few things will give you nightmares more than Ray Wise’s Joker-like smile when his Leland Palmer is possessed in Twin Peaks’s second season. And the actor has put that face to exceptional use in countless films and series since then—including on 24, How I Met Your Mother, Mad Men, and Fresh Off the Boat.

Peggy Lipton (Norma Jennings)

Perhaps known best to Twin Peaks fans as pie baker extraordinaire Norma Jennings, Peggy Lipton also co-starred with fellow Peaks survivor Dana Ashbrook in the TV series Crash, and most recently appeared as the grown-up Hannah in A Dog’s Purpose.

Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs)

Dana Ashbrook doesn’t always play an obnoxious jock. He also played a straight-up criminal—Clyde Barrow in Bonnie & Clyde: The True Story—before joining Dawson’s Creek as Rich Rinaldi. Oh, and he’s also played a kidnapper on Law & Order: S.V.U..

Piper Laurie (Catherine Martell)

Like some of her co-stars, Piper Laurie had made a name for herself long before she stepped into the world of Twin Peaks—for instance, in the 1976 film adaptation of Carrie, in which she starred as Carrie’s mother, Margaret. But after Twin Peaks, Laurie continued making stops on other series, including Frasier, Will & Grace, and Law & Order: S.V.U., in which she played Dorothy Rudd, an abusive foster grandmother.

Joan Chen (Josie Packard)

In the years following Twin Peaks, Joan Chen proved she can do more than rock a pixie cut and a constant frown—the erstwhile Last Emperor star moved on to series including, recently, Empress Chabi in Netflix’s Marco Polo.

Kimmy Robertson (Lucy Moran)

Kimmy Robertson doesn’t always fetch doughnuts. She’s also played a wide swath of roles, including the feather duster in Disney’s original Beauty and the Beast, Milhouse’s short-lived girlfriend Samantha in The Simpsons, and Kimmy on The Louie Show—which one should not confuse with Louie, although the stars of both now live on FX.

Kenneth Welsh (Windom Earle)

You know what they say: one man’s insane ex-cop is another man’s foolish veep. At least, it seems that way with Kenneth Welsh, who played Windom Earle in Twin Peaks, as well as the vice president who didn’t believe Dennis Quaid about global warming in The Day After Tomorrow. Welsh, who had been an actor for decades before Twin Peaks, enjoyed a bit of a career high in the mid-aughts, which brought roles not only in the climate disaster film but also in films like The Aviator and The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Russ Tamblyn (Lawrence Jacoby)

Before David Lynch brought him on as a sketchy doctor with multi-colored specs, Russ Tamblyn—yes, father to Amber Tamblyn—co-starred with Richard Beymer in West Side Story, in which he played Riff. Post-Peaks, you can find him, among other roles, in Django Unchained and Drive.